Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

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I always have loved learning, and exploring, so the school part of school was always a great thing. Even the kids were okay up until we were all twelve or so, and then we all got hormones and all hell broke out. I bet you won’t find that in any of the back-to-school ads: Free hormone booster packs with your Hello Kitty backpack! ;)

I don’t remember my first day of playschool, but I do remember my first day of “real” school, at a grim old building that still had separate entrances for boys and girls. We had to line up outside, and go in as a unit, but I was relieved to find that the old entrances weren’t used and we went in through the main hall.

I was four, perhaps, or five–I don’t remember that detail, but I do remember that we all had an assigned peg with a big friendly name label and I wondered why a couple of the kids were crying when their mothers left. Now, my natural shyness kicked in and when we had to write the numbers from 1 to a 100 in a square grid. I gave up at 10 and pretended I couldn’t go any further, even though I could already read and knew my numbers well. Heaven for me was the “quiet corner” which consisted of a sandwich board like structure stuffed to the brim with books.

We didn’t have lunch boxes; the lunches were provided. That first day, I couldn’t eat a thing. The dinner ladies tried to coax me, but I couldn’t. (I can’t imagine such a thing now, I really can’t.) We got a bottle of milk provided by the state to enjoy in the morning, too. New clothes? Probably. The first day of school wasn’t the exercise in fashion victimization it is now, but there was still a sense of setting us out on a path, and doing it right.

I had a wooden pencil case with a sliding top and a special hinge that would swing out. It was pretty distinctive. Color labels might have been fun for some of the other stuff, like the books we had to write in, but at five we were pretty heavily herded and didn’t need to think about much.

At eleven, I might have had more use for it, going into the Big School for the first time and, in a way, being as daunted by it as I was by the Infants’ School. But we didn’t have those fancy Dymo labelers back then; just the funky ones that indented the words into a strip of sticky-backed plastic, and those weren’t used for school. Clothes had to be labeled, books, bags, gym kit–all the mixed paraphernalia that complicates one life more and more as one grows up.

I miss the simplicity of those wooden pencil case days.

16 July 2008

It had been dark when we arrived here overnight, so we had little to no sense of the landscape. So when we woke up early on Wednesday morning, we were pleasantly surprised. The O’Brien rest area, just a few miles north of Shasta Lake, was very pretty. -

I’d love to ride to Charleston this October, but it’s not going to happen. It’s not just the high cost of gas is keeping me back; it’s that there are all these pesky mountains in between California and South Carolina, and those are likely to have some (eep!) snow. So, either we’re going to have to take out a mortgage to drive the RV there and back, or it’s good old air miles for me along with destination bike envy (you know, envy of those who are already out on their bikes).

Travel by air has changed beyond recognition. It’s like the bad old days when we couldn’t afford to fly have come back. And now they either don’t feed you at all, or sell you overpriced food… and travel blankets are few and far between. Even when I travel in jeans I get cold flying. It’s got to be the piped air and the enforced sitting still. Nothing to warm the blood, and all that.

Luckily, there’s the Cabin Cuddler now. The compact little bag holds a patented blanket design with a little pocket for your feet. It even has its own inflatable pillow! Actually, this would be a neat thing to take on a bike, especially if you were camping (or stuck somewhere). And, unlike airline blankets, they’re actually big enough to cover you from top to toe.

Pretty neat!

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One of these days I’m going to have to learn how to drive a car (again: It’s been 20 years since driver’s ed.) They have snow-chain warnings around here–uh-oh! It’d be nice to drive something with a bit of zip…maybe get a nice little Audi with an added audi turbo. Something innocent-looking until it actually accelerates with 30-40% more power. Whumph! ;)

There was a cop one who pulled up alongside me once and suggested I race him for a pink slip :: giggle :: (No, I am not kidding. This really happened, and made my day too.)

I guess we’re not going to get too far with supercharging a Toyota van, but hey, if you ever wanted to give your car a bit of oomph, you might check out Turbo Charger Pros. They have a bunch of options and great prices. If I didn’t ride bikes, I’d be looking at some kind of sporty car. I do have an image to maintain, after all. ;)

15 July 2008

When we left home a week ago last Tuesday, the smoke was this thick. Blech!

Just as we turned onto 299, a fire engine shot by. The fire-fighting efforts are still in full swing. (more…)

Imagine not being able to imagine. To remember. To recognize a familiar face. This is Alzheimer’s, and I’m honored to once again be doing a sponsorship post for the Alzheimer’s Memory Walk.

I’ve known several people who have lost their loved ones to this event. My uncle died of Alzheimer’s last year. It’s a terrible disease that causes pain to the victims and those around the victims.

Right now, team captains are needed for this fund-raising event, the largest one of its kind in the nation. This Fall, over 600 communities will organize walks of 2-3 miles to raise money for research about the disease and care of its victims. If there is one near you, or even if there isn’t (my closest one is in Chico, about a hundred miles away), you can get together a team and start fund-raising to take part.

Oh, and there are virtual teams this year as well–so if you can’t walk, then you can fund-raise virtually.

If you go to the link above, the site gives you ideas on how to get sponsorships and how to put together a team. Pick a walk, then recruit two friends. Add three more people, and that’s a team. You get your own fund-raising page where you can set your goals. And then you train…and walk.

We’re on the home stretch now. We spent the last couple of nights at Castle Crags State Park, a lovely wooded area where we lucked on the one site, next to a meadow, where we could get a satellite signal. Don and I have very different needs; he likes to be online (in a natural wooded setting) and I like to go hiking and fa-la-la-ing in the forest. It works very well. (Okay, you won’t catch me singing in the forest, but I have to pet those forest child tendencies once in a while, you know?)

So this morning I headed out on a little hike up to the vista point. The Castle Crags are very surprising as you travel up the interstate…it’s all wooded hills and mountains and then WHOAH! This great big wall of crenellated granite leaps out at you. After my incredibly lazy night (and an interesting campfire which we extinguished after we became aware of glowing eyes watching us, Scooby-Doo-style), I headed up the road to the vista point. After some while I found a path that said “Vista Point trail” so I took it. (more…)

Tomorrow is the day when I blog for 24 hours straight for Christian Children’s Fund. I did the same last year and it was a hoot. I hope that you can join me in the festivities. :)

Here are the details as they stand. I should have more information for you tomorrow!